"The Static Drinking Game" - or - "Why Should I Support the Military?"

Quote:

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Originally posted by Knibblet:
Succotash,
If you are an American, you are responsible. Our goverment is supposed to be of the people and for the people. We are our country, we are our government.
It is the mature, educated individual's understanding that they are responsible for the actions of their government that spurred so many people to protest against going to war. It is what keeps us protesting.
Because of my government, my fellow citizens will pay a horrible price. We didn't stop them - It makes me (and you) responsible.

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While I agree that we have a responsibility to stand up for what we believe in, to protest those decisions we don't like, and to participate in our govermental process..

.. saying that we are all responsible for something like a war is taking it a bit far. Because let me tell you, if you voted for the other side, if you wrote letters and made phone calls and attended marches and spoke out against it - what more are you supposed to do? Saying that those who stepped up and tried to make a difference are still responsible for somehow 'not going far enough' is like saying minorities just haven't done enough to stop discrimination.

There is, realistically, only so much an individual can do. Because of the nature of democracy, the /majority/ rules (theoretically). Which means that if you are the minority, you're tough outta luck, unless the majority decides to champion you. You can attempt to sway them, to change their mind, but ultimately, you can only vote your one vote.

And even then, what the leaders of the country do once elected is not the direct responsibility of the voters - not unless they posess some of River's skills. I doubt many thought Bush would take us to war when the election occured. Had they known, they might have chosen differently - some each way. I believe our leaders have a good deal of responsibility for the actions our government takes. We have a responsibility to sway those actions as we can.

But let's face it - there is a limit. And as someone who took part in a protest or two, and who will certainly be campaigning to elect someone new, I do not in anyway accept that /I/ made any decision that led to war. At best, I'm a few cause-and-effects down the chain. And even that is pushing it.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Succatash:

The thought of soldiers whooping and hollering, excited to kill, is chilling. The fact that Static and his comrades shout Firefly quotes ("No power in the 'verse can stop me!") just before they go kill, doesn't make me very happy.

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I am very familiar with the military aviation in particular (My dad helped keep USN A-7s flying in Vietnam) and I would like to point out that when a pilot or gunner or bombardier yells "Splash One!" or something more inappropriate for this forum you may think its chilling but please remember that if these men and women take time to think about what they are doing it will get them quite dead. Ever ounce of thought that they put forward in to thinking that there is a man on the other side of their weapons is one ounce of thought taken away from monitoring their altimeter or RWR or FLIR. What we perceive as acting like it’s a game is one of the things that keep a solder alive.

I would like to say that we have lost hundreds in Iraq and we will lose hundreds more and its a tragedy, but if we successed we have shown the "Evil" nations of world that we will not tolerate what they do. There may not be WMDs in Iraq but by doing what we are doing we show nations like North Korea, Iran and others that we will come after you if you think about persuing such weapons. If we went after the nations hostile to us that had such weapons we would lose THOUSANDS. Believe me you think a few solders being blown up will make headlines imagine what news a North Korea anti ship missile to a USN frigate would generate, or an Iranian Shkval rocket torpedo to a US sub or half dozen super quiet diesel submarines of one nation or another swarming a US battle Group! If we lose several hundred men in Iraq it could mean that thousands of our solders will not die next time.

Believe me by showing the world we will not tolerate even a slight threat to our nations security half way around the world we are protecting American citizens. There are conventional weapons out there that make chemical/biological weapons unnecessary. Imagine what a Mach 6 missile aimed at the White House could do! By showing that we will overthrow a dictator who posed littlie threat we are showing that we will annihilate any nation who might dare mine a major waterway necessary to our commerce or take a US ship over. This is a dangerous time in the world and it’s not because of the US, over the past 10 years weapons that match or exceed our nations capabilities have begun filtering down to nations with scores to settle and our nation’s armed forces have been deprived of necessary weapons. Our warships have less anti ship missiles and what they have are subsonic and easy to destroy with modern anti missile systems. We have fewer and fewer attack jets, the A-6s and F-4s have been retired with no replacement. We need to make a stand against nations and groups who want to see us destroyed, otherwise when North Korean troops come marching thou the DMZ shelling towns or the Persian Gulf is a oil soaked fire ball with Kilo class subs sending UGST torpedoes in to anything that moves the world is going to cry out “Where is the US!” and we are going to be sitting at home scared to send troops in to danger.

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Wow Knibblet! Do you really belive that American govt is OF the people, BY the people, For the people? We are nothing if not a power-driven entity, fueled by a business attitude.

And Gunnrunner... N Korea and many other countries which the U.S. won't attack already have WMD and our attacks on other less capable countries, like Iraq, have done nothing to deter them from making more WMD and even taunting us to come and try to disarm them.

But neither of those things is what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that you've all apparently missed Succatash's point. I may be wrong here. To me it seems that he is not pleased to have words that he associates with Firefly heroism to be shouted during acts of killing. Does this make sense to anyone else? It seems a little incongruous... I mean, it doesn't fit with the situation. If Static were to say something from the Pilot episode, from one of the war scenes wherein the independents were being heroic in wartime, I could sort of see the parallel, but the lines offered are not those from battle scenes, instead they are usually from other parts of the show which don't have to do with war heroics. Does this make sense yet? To give a parallel, it would be like Luke Skywalker saying "may the force be with you" to someone and then killing them. You just need to have the right context for these things.

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Succatash,

I just want to talk a second about the military culture and why soldiers et al get amped when going into action . . .
Mainly it boils down to fear and desensitizing.
If a soldiers training has been any good then they will have an exceptional respect for the dangers of combat, and they will be afraid of messing up and getting themselves or someone else killed. This has to be dealt with, and an effective way to do so is to replace it with a wierd hooah bravado. The wierd hooah bravado works becuase after being in action you relize that fear never goes away, it must be dealt with daily, hourly . . .
. . . and so you psych yourself up by yelling and denegrating the foe and being impressed by the technology and the weapons and the effects and doing everything except acknowledging that you are terrified and don't want to die, would rather be anywhere but in the fire zone . . .
Don't forget you are young still . . . and the exuberence of youth is essential. I am sure you have heard the phrase old men start the wars young men die in.
So . . . we need a military because the world is dangerous. The military needs to be disciplined, brutal, callous and cruel becuase otherwise it would not be able to function in combat.

I feel I should mention that those qualities above are joined with loyalty, generousity, and a strange compassion . . . it's hard to explain, and I am speaking in massive generalizations, so keep that in mind.

anyway, it's true this war sucks. Our administration sucks. No matter what we are stuck in this middle east for the next ten years, no matter that this Iraq war was a sham and a vendetta. (Afghanistan I view differently.)

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